This article examines intonational variation in a language contact situation. The study contributes to sociolinguistic research on the social meaning of intonational variation (Podesva ; Levon ). Intonation is studied in a multilingual context of global mobility: within a group of Polish‐speaking migrants in Britain who, thanks to cheap transportation and new channels of communication, could make use of linguistic resources unlimited by territorial boundaries from the beginning of their transnational experience. The study shows that speakers with seemingly similar linguistic and cultural profiles make use of intonation patterns in different ways in the context of the narrative of the self: speakers oriented towards the global economy and the English‐speaking world incorporate a mainly English intonational pattern, the fall‐rise, with increased frequency to do interactional work that it does in English, while other groups maintain Standard Polish norms. As shown, intonational variation participates in the creation of fluid identities that blur linguistic and sociocultural boundaries.

This article aims to examine how sociopolitical changes impact language ideology and linguistic practices within transnational multilingual families with a particular focus on families with ties to Poland in post-EUreferendum Britain. Drawing on the survey and ethnographic interview data collected as part of the ESRC-funded Family Language Policy project between 2017 and 2019, we found that the public attitude towards Polish and Polish speakers have changed significantly following the Brexit vote. While general lack of security and disappointment were reported by most families, the first-hand experiences of discrimination and violence were reported particularly among those in socioeconomically underprivileged positions. Despite these changes and differences, however, Polish speakers and families continue to hold onto the promise of multilingualism, carrying on with their language use and learning practices. These findings demonstrate the multilingual reality and resilience in family language policy and practices at the time of crisis and have wider implications for understanding influential factors underlying family language policy.

This article reports emerging polycentric ideological orientations among UK‐educated middle‐class Polish‐speaking young adult migrants living and working in South‐East England in 2013–2014. The analysis of phonetic‐semiotic details in stance‐taking acts in chronotopic representations of experience reveals a continuum of sociolinguistic authority in which despite a shared sociocultural background, sociolinguistic possibilities are differently conceptualized and enacted. A close examination of the ways in which the participants exploit differences in clusters of morphonological detail demonstrates that English‐like realizations in Polish, while motivated by particular linguistic context and discursive function, co‐occur mainly in the speech of female “cosmopolitans” to signal orientation toward relevant social images and create locally valid and recognizable value effects. The relational, collective, and embodied soundings of sameness and difference depend on scalarity and complex interconnections between ethnicity, class, and gender in transnational timespace. The findings have implications for studies of variation and migrant discourse.

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